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‘Hannibal Rising’: The Worst Villain Returns

When the American Film Institute released their ‘100 Years of 100 Heroes and Villains’ in 2003, it was no surprise to find everyone’s favorite single dad as the No. 1 greatest hero. Atticus Finch from ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ was realized on the silver screen in 1962 by the equally-loved Gregory Peck.
Conversely, the list of villains provided a pulse-quickening list of actors who have portrayed the most villainous characters in film history.
Crawling their way to top-cruel tier stand Darth Vader from 1980’s ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ at No. 3 and Norman Bates from the 1960 release of ‘Psycho’ at No. 2.
Standing as the No. 1 villain is the morbidly civil and polite Hannibal Lecter. This paragon of evil has been most infamously portrayed by Sir Anthony Hopkins in 1991’s ‘Silence of the Lambs.’ Hopkins won an Academy Award for his role, despite appearing in the film for barely over 16 minutes.
Of the four Lecter novels by Thomas Harris, three have made it to film and created over a decade’s worth of the incarnation of evil on two legs. Now, several years after the 2002 release of ‘Red Dragon’

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